Asia Tech Wire (Jan 26) -- US chipmaker Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) and Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp. (NYSE: UMC, UMC) have joined forces to develop a 12nm process platform to take on TSMC.

Intel on Thursday announced a new foundry collaboration agreement with UMC that will see the two companies work together to develop a 12-nanometer process platform targeting high-growth markets.

The two companies will develop and manufacture the new 12nm process at Intel's fab in Arizona, which is set to go into production in 2027.

Neither Intel nor UMC disclosed the amount of money the two sides of the partnership plan to invest.

It is worth noting that this is the first time Intel and a Taiwan foundry to cooperate in the development of chip manufacturing processes.

Stuart Pann, Intel's senior vice president and general manager of Intel Foundry Services (IFS), said the strategic partnership with UMC "is another important step" toward the company's goal of becoming the world's second-largest foundry by 2030.

UMC expected the partnership to assist its client in smoothly upgrading to the critical 12nm technology node, while benefiting from the supply chain resilience that comes with expanding capacity in the North American market.

Intel is now actively strengthening its foundry capabilities, focusing mainly on the development of advanced process technologies.

In the first half of last year, Intel has announced cooperation with Arm Ltd., enabling Arm customers to build low-power compute system-on-chips (SoCs) on its 18A process technology.

The semiconductor industry believed that Intel and Arm reached the cooperation, is to attract the attention of Qualcomm Inc., MediaTek Inc. and other semiconductor companies, and even for chip foundry orders from Apple Inc.